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ANIMAL JUSTICE PROJECT HANDS IN PETITION AND MEETS WITH ANIMAL RESEARCHERS IN STOCKHOLM!

This week, Animal Justice Project travelled to Sweden to join forces with our Swedish campaign partners, Djurrättsalliansen. We handed in our petition signed by 55,139 people to end monkey imports and experiments at world-renouned university, Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. On the day of the hand in, we also attended a meeting at the university with our Science Advisor, who is also Director of Antidote Europe, Dr Andre Menache. Antidote is an organisation that campaigns for better human health through human-specific techniques of medical testing and research. Researchers from Karolinska Institute at the meeting were Brun Ulfhake, Anders Gustafsson and Anders Ekbom. A reporter from their internal news publication was also present.

Brun Ulfhake, in particular, is a major user of animals. His early work included experiments on kittens and cats (see HERE and HERE). He has subjected them to some horrendous procedures, including the transection of their spinal chords. Brun has also cut the spinal nerves of rodents, and used mice bred deliberately to have severe muscle weakness.

We launched our petition and campaign following a tip off that 120 macaque monkeys were due to be imported into Karolinska Institute for a malaria study. Since the launch we have been working hard to keep the pressure on – presenting an Open Letter to the Swedish Embassy signed by 33 eminent scientists (including Dr Jane Goodall) and experts, as well as obtaining quotes from celebrities such as Joanna Lumley and Moby (as featured in The Express).

During this week’s meeting in Stockholm, Animal Justice Project and Djurrättsalliansen spoke of the strong public opinion against monkey experiments and urged the university to end its cruel and futile research on primates. Dr Menache spke at length on the advances in malaria research without the use of primates, and the problems associated with animal use in general. He talked about advances such as human-on-a-chip and systems to develop vaccines without using animals, such as the in vitro MIMIC system. The Karolinska Institute appeared unaware of modern advances, and were unable to provide any evidence that monkey research is evidence-based.

You can read Dr Menache’s report for Animal Justice Project on the Swedish monkey experiment HERE.

We are pleased to announce that the university is unlikely to import and use more than the 24 macaque monkeys already in their cages. They are also considering releasing some monkeys to Djurrättsalliansen. Dr Menache will be filing a report to the university on the important issue of primate research, and urging them to lead the way by ditching animal experiments.